The entire industry supplying domestically grown forestry plants is threatened by delays in the Department of Agriculture’s forestry programme, the chair of the Social, Economic, Environmental Forestry Association (SEEFA) and director of None-So-Hardy Teige Ryan has claimed.

Ryan told the Irish Farmers Journal that a worst-case scenario would involve the nursery being faced with destroying trees and laying off staff.

Nurseries had hoped to get details on the schemes which will be offered to farmers and landowners “by the Ploughing at the very latest” but the Department of Agriculture’s draft of the new forestry programme was only put to public consultation last week.

None-So-Hardy supplies around 90% of trees used to plant the country’s forestry and cannot carry trees for replanting beyond three years, given that survival rates during establishment plummet once trees go beyond three years.

“The situation is that there are absolutely no details, the forestry companies are completely in the dark,” Ryan said.

“Once details are out, it takes time for the programme to be marketed, advertised, allow foresters to persuade farmers to plant and then get contractors in to do the work. All this needs to happen before a single tree goes into the ground.”

Urgency

The SEEFA chair stated that the urgency of the situation is exacerbated by the planting season’s tight timeframe which runs between November and March, with some very limited capacity there to plant trees out of cold storage for a short spell after late March.

“November and December are gone. No one is going to plant until 2023 when the new programme is in,” Ryan went on.

“But if we don’t get details now, we could be looking at January and February gone too. Realistically, we need details now, not in a week or the week after.

“We can’t pay graders to come in and grade trees the way we do every year. Of the 85 staff we have, about 65 of these would be graders.”